Discrimination While Shopping

Discrimination when Shopping

Professor: Edward Hernandez, PhD

Course: Intro to Sociology: SOC100

Date: March 12, 2014

Discrimination when Shopping

I am choosing this topic based on the amount of help you receive based on the way you are dressed in a store.

Introduction

If you are dressed with your hair done, your make up on, nice clothes, no ravels or wrinkles, your gold jewelry on, etc. store clerks are more apt to assist you because they think you have a lot of money to spend in their establishment. If you are dressed in your jogging pants, slouchy t-shirt, hair greasy, no make-up, no care in the world, nothing matching, etc., then some of the store clerks will actually turn their nose up at you. I have even witnessed a store manager ask a person to leave based on the way they were dressed in their establishment.

Have you ever been shopping and you did not receive any assistance because of the way you were dressed?

I think back to the movie “Pretty Woman. In this movie Vivenne (Julia Roberts) was given money to purchase cloths for dinners, shopping, etc. However, when she went into the store on Rodeo Drive a saleswoman was very snooty with her because she was still dressed like a hooker. She was very upset at this action and left. She made sure that the hotel manager knew what was going on and was able to go back shopping the next day with Edward Lewis (Richard Gere). After she purchased an obscene amount of clothing and spent an obscene amount of money she went back to the previous store and showed them exactly what they missed out on. (Mashall, 1990) She was faced with discrimination in that clothing store because of the way that she was dressed. If she would have been dressed in the clothing that she purchased the next day she would not have had any trouble receiving the attention from the sales woman that she deserved.

Should you be treated different because of the way you are dressed. When you walk into a boutique or...